


fragile peace

by ballerinaroy



Series: nineteen years later seems pretty far away [18]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Difficult Decisions, F/M, Family Drama, Family Dynamics, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 16:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19398193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballerinaroy/pseuds/ballerinaroy
Summary: Her daughter had been stolen away at eleven to go to wizarding school. Her husband was stolen from her by dementia. Now Helen Granger must decide how she wants her own life to go, and whether to confront the things that ruined her relationship with her daughter all those years ago or continue to maintain the fragile peace.Set directly after early onset.





	fragile peace

Helen had only been to the Burrow once before and had attributed the chaos of the cozy home to the wedding. Almost as soon as she’d walked through the door that Sunday she was corrected in that assumption as it had the same excited energy the home had had on the day Helen had helped her daughter get ready for the ceremony. Before they could even get through the door it had burst open, James and another nephew of Hermione’s Helen couldn’t identify on sight, bolting out as a motherly voice yelled after them-“And stay in the orchard!”

The boys seemed not to have heard the voice as they sped off, Rose stopped only from speeding after them by Ron grabbing her shoulder and reminding her, “At least say hello to Nan before you disappear.”

Rose gave a sigh and ran into the house in front of them, shouting her greeting and disappearing out the door before Helen had even had the time to unzip her jacket.

“Oh there you are,” Ginny said as they entered the kitchen. “Hermione, could you call Harry? He swore he’d be here by noon.”

“Of course,” Hermione said, fishing through the beaded bag on her wrist.

From it she pulled the shard of glass Helen had seen her talking into on occasion.

“Harry?” she called and a moment later his face appeared in the glass. “Your wife is wondering where you are.”

Harry gave a groan, “Have I missed lunch?”

“You’re about to,” Hermione said and lowered her voice. “Is this about the Permission case?”

“I hate to do this to you, but we could really use legal’s advice on this…” his voice trailed off as Hermione brought the mirror closer to her face and walked from the room.

“Doesn’t everyone have those mirrors?” Helen asked Ginny, following her into the kitchen.

“No,” Ginny said, pulling a face, “just the two of them.”

“I’d think you’d like to have the other end to it,” Helen pointed out.

“I sure hope you’re not trying to imply anything about your daughter and my husband,” Ginny said, suddenly serious.

“Oh, no,” Helen sputtered, “I just meant—“

“I’m only joking,” Ginny said hurriedly at the look on Helen’s face. “I had my rows with them about it, but when you’re around them long enough you’ll see there’s no use. Harry’s completely mine but the relationship the three of them have with one another is different.”

“They’re very interwoven,” Helen commented.

“I believe my exact words were _so co-dependent you can’t even manage to use the loo without consulting the others,_ ” Ginny said in a mocking voice. “Besides, Harry comes home to me every night, but if they didn’t have those mirrors I’d have to send the kids to fetch him before dinner.”

“Where’d they get the mirrors from then?” Helen asked, “Couldn’t they make more?”

“Harry’s father and godfather made them so they could chat in separate detentions,” Ginny explained. “We’ve talked about it, but it’s one of the only thing Harry’s got left from them. Once he’s ready I’m sure Hermione and George could manage it in a weekend.”

“George, that’s the one Ron works with?” Helen asked.

“Mmh,” Ginny answered, “He’ll be here later with the rest of his lot.”

From across the kitchen, the fireplace turned green and to Helen’s alarm, a man’s face appeared. “Have you seen Louis? He was supposed to be finishing his lessons but I think he’s slipped off.”

“He’s here!” Ginny called, leaning around the table to get a clear view of the man. “He and James went out to the orchard. Do you want me to call them back?”

“No, no use,” the man with a scared face said with a sigh. “I’ll come and fetch him after lunch. What’s mum cooking?”

“Roast chicken, are yours coming?” Ginny asked.

“No, Fleur’s parents are coming tomorrow and we’ve got to go into town.” He answered, looking around the kitchen. “Who have you got there with you.”

“You remember Helen, Hermione’s mum?” Ginny said, gesturing for Helen to lean closer to the fire. “This is Bill, our oldest brother.”

“Ah,” Bill said warmly, “How are you getting settled in?”

“Fine,” Helen said, a little dazed to be speaking to a floating head in the fireplace.

Bill turned his head suddenly to look to his side and rolled his eyes at his sister. “I’ve got to go, keep Louis there till I come, would you? Fleur’s spent all morning on the floors and I don’t want to hear about him tracking mud through the house.”

“Sure,” Ginny agreed with a wave, “Have fun.”

Bill grinned and his head disappeared with a pop as the fire died down and went back to its usual color. Ginny straightened in her chair and turned back to Helen.

“Fleur’s parents are from France,” Ginny explained. “Fleur’s softened quite a bit over the years but her parents turn her right back into who she was in school.”

Helen gave an understanding smile. “And they’ve three children.”

“Victorie, Dominique and Louis,” Ginny nodded. “I’m sure we’ve a picture here somewhere.”

She stood but before she got very far she was blocked by her the plump, friendly looking mother.

“Helen dear, so nice to see you,” Molly said at once in greeting. “How are you settling in? Ron and Hermione aren’t putting their kids on you are they?”

“No, of course not,” Helen answered, “it’s nice to see the grandkids.”

“Mmh, much more fun being a grandmother isn't it?,” Molly agreed with a smile, glancing as she said it out the window to where in the distance they could see a half dozen children on brooms gliding about. She turned to Ginny, “Was that Bill?”

“Mmh, he said to keep Lois here until he comes to fetch him,” Ginny told her, “Were you able to find the book Lily left?”

“It ended up in the attic somehow, no idea how it got there,” Molly said, sinking down into a chair at the head of the table.

“I’m sure James had nothing to do with that,” Ginny said sarcastically. “Mum, where’s that picture from Harry’s birthday? I wanted to show Helen everyone.”

“Hermione drew me a family tree,” Helen explained. “But I don’t know if I’ve seen everyone since the wedding.”

“And we’ve added quite a few since then,” Molly smiled, and then to her daughter “It’s hanging by the door.”

To Helen’s surprise Ginny sat back down and pulled her wand. “Accio family picture.”

“You were already halfway there,” Molly pointed out.

“Ginny, Harry wants to apologize,” Hermione said as she came back into the room, expertly ducking as a framed picture came flying in behind her. Unfazed as the frame went flying over her head, Hermione passed the mirror to Ginny before turning to her mother, “Mum, I’m really sorry but I’ve got to go in the office for a spell. I could drop you off at home if you’d like.”

Ginny began talking in the small mirror Helen frequently saw her own daughter talking into as she passed into the other room.

“It’s alright dear,” Helen assured her. “I’m sure Ron won’t leave me here.”

Molly, who’d caught the picture before it went smashing into the wall, said “Hermione dear, I don’t know why you didn’t give your mother a picture, I don’t know how a family tree could sort out this family.”

“I didn’t think of it,” Hermione said absently. “Harry says another hour but I doubt we’ll be back.”

“Hold on a second and I’ll make you both a plate,” Molly said, standing.

“Is it time to eat?” Ron asked, poking his head into the kitchen. Helen hadn't even noticed him leaving the house. 

“It’s amazing you can hear that from all the way outside,” Hermione teased, looking like herself again.

Ron grinned at her but seemed to notice something in her expression. “Is everything alright?”

“Harry’s called me in,” Hermione told him and he crossed the room to her.

“Is this about the-?” Ron trailed off, a meaningful look on his face. Hermione nodded and they conferred in low, serious voices. Finally, Ron said, “Be careful, alright?”

“Always,” Hermione told him, giving him a kiss. “I shouldn’t be long, but you’ll make sure my mum’s alright?”

“I’ll be fine Hermione,” Helen assured her again. “You act like you’ve never taken me out in public before.”

“I know,” Hermione said, she accepted the plates from Molly with a thanks, waving her wand over them before putting them, uncovered, into the small beaded bag on her wrist. “Make sure you get the mirror back from Ginny.”

They stayed at the Burrow well into the afternoon without the reappearance of Hermione. No one seemed concerned that Hermione nor Harry had returned and Helen got the impression that it was often that the two were called into work.

“I’m surprised to see you up this early,” Helen said, startling her daughter as she came into the kitchen the following morning.

Hermione jumped, pulling her wand and pointing it squarely at Helen’s chest.

“Sorry, you startled me,” Hermione said, pointing out the obvious as she glanced around the room suspiciously. Helen could see her mutter something with a wave of her wand before, apparently satisfied, pocketing it.

“Did everything go alright, with Harry?” Helen asked. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Yes, everything’s fine,” Hermione said with a yawn, going to pour herself a cup of tea. “Sorry I had to leave you at the Burrow.”

“I didn’t mind, it was nice to finally see the world you’ve been hiding from us,” she hadn’t meant the bitterness in her voice and felt guilty as Hermione winced. Quickly she decided to change the topic. “I’d no idea how famous you were.”

“How do you mean?” Hermione asked.

“Molly lent me some light reading,” Helen answered, closing the book and showing it to her.

“Oh, I really wish she hadn’t.”Hermione pulled a face, sitting down and examining the cover. “She collects all of those, at least this one is fairly honest. Some of them try and write Ron out of the story entirely.”

“He mustn’t like that,”

“Ron’s gotten over it,” Hermione said, “But I haven’t. We couldn’t have done it without him, it always had to be the three of us.”

Helen smiled at her daughter as she made another face at the book and looked up at her mother.

“You know, being there, with a family who has magic so ingrained in them, so careless with it, I’m starting to see what made you do what you did.” Hermione blinked at her in surprise. “I wish I’d gotten to see it sooner.”

“If I’d brought you there before, do you really think you would have understood it?” Hermione asked, a genuine curiosity in her eyes.

“No,” Helen admitted with a soft sigh. “I didn’t want like it, not after everything that happened.”

The familiar tension that had been lingering since they’d returned to England with their memories restored felt suddenly very present. It was the subject they’d managed to tiptoe around for years following the spectacular rows of Hermione and her father. They had been so fierce on their stances that Helen had never felt much room to say her piece, choosing to instead maintain the, at times, fragile peace between them.

The question now was on her lips before she lost the courage, “Do you ever regret what you did?”

“No,” Hermione said fiercely and without thinking.

Helen found herself suddenly blinking back tears at this admission.

“I wish I did sometimes, for the sake of our relationship,” Hermione said, her voice softer now, more kind. “And for what it did to dad. And I do have remorse for those things, but even knowing the end I still would have drawn my wand and marched into the war.”

The end of her sentence had a finality to it and Helen pondered it for a moment. She knew her daughter wasn’t used to being argued with and considered whether it was worth disagreeing with her now.

“Hermione you are our only child,” Helen burst out. “And you never even gave us the option to form an opinion.”

“Well, what would you have done mum?” Hermione said, looking for the first time in years much younger than she was. “You would have pulled me from school, not let me go back. I had to keep going, keep fighting.”

“You were a child Hermione, you had no right to be making those decisions for yourself.”

“I was of age,” Hermione protested, “I wasn’t a child when I went to war.“

“The lies didn’t start when you were of age Hermione,” Helen protested. “You’ve said it yourself, many times. It started when you were younger, much younger. From the time you were fifteen you were lying about where you were and why.”

“I was just trying to protect you,” Hermione said in a small voice.

“I know that sweetheart,” Helen said earnestly, reaching over to grasp her daughter’s hands. “And that’s what makes all of this so difficult. We were never able to protect you.”

Hermione didn’t say anything.

“We sent you away at eleven to a school and a world we’d never even heard of because that’s what we thought was best for you. And from the letters we got from you and your teachers you were absolutely brilliant at it and you seemed so—happy.

“But we’d been lied to, all those years. Not just by you Hermione, but by those adults we’d entrusted with your care. We hadn’t even known to be worried for you and then you’re coming home telling us that there’s a war you’re running off into and before we even have the time to settle those emotions you erased our memories without even giving us a choice!”

Hermione glanced at the stairs and whispered. “The kids.”

Helen let out a long sigh, slumping back into her chair as she lowered her voice. “Our trust had been broken, not just with you but with the whole world you’d pledged your life to. And we couldn’t be cross with you fighting because you’d always been so incredibly brave but we couldn’t understand why you’d want to go back to a world that had demanded so much of you so young.”

“I never had friends,” Hermione’s voice was a deliberate calm. “Before I went to Hogwarts. My classmates, they never understood me. They thought I was a know-it-all for always asking too many questions and even then I could tell my teachers were annoyed with me because I always wanted to know more. Not even to mention all the-the odd things I did. It scared them, it scared me and I know it scared you too.”

Helen could hardly argue with this. It had been a relief, even for them, to discover an explanation for their daughter’s obscure talents.

“And then I found out there was a reason I could do odd things and I was offered a place in a world that made sense, a world that I could explore for the rest of my life and never stop discovering. Don’t get me wrong, I was still a know-it-all, but at least in the wizarding world, I had a purpose. And then I met Ron and Harry and I felt, for the first time in my life, that I truly belonged somewhere.

“As a mother, I would be furious to find out that my child had been up to all the things I had, but at fifteen, with the threat of being removed from the only place I belonged, of course, I wasn’t going to give it up. Having to give up magic, give up my place in a world I belonged in, have to lose the only two people I trusted with all my heart, wasn’t an option. It would have ruined me.”

“It didn’t have to be you,” Helen protested again, weaker now. “I know that it had to be Harry but you…”

“Could have been friends with someone else?” Hermione supplied and Helen nodded guiltily. “I couldn’t’ve. I would have turned into a rather unpleasant person if it hadn’t been for Ron and Harry. Not to mention that I was the cleverest student in our year,” she paused and added in a smaller, more modest, voice, “of our age.”

It hadn’t been the first time that someone had mentioned Hermione’s brilliance but Helen’s heart swelled proudly all the same. The letters from the teachers aside, she could still remember how eager Hermione’s letters had been once she’d gone away to school, long rants about magical theories which even then had seemed too mature for Hermione’s age.

“And I wouldn’t’ve had Ron,” her voice was wavering now as if the possibility was too terrible to even name. “Or the kids. Or anything about my life right now that I hold dear. I would have turned into an academic, the same intensity I had at eleven when I never put a book down and never put what I learned to use. I love my life mum, and I love it so much more because this is life I fought for, the life we earned.”

Helen found herself at a complete loss for words and her heart ached that her own selfishness couldn’t reconcile her own hurt with her daughter’s joy.

“Darling,” Helen said, “I’m not trying to imply that I’m not proud of you now, because I am so very proud.”

“I wish,” Hermione said carefully, “things had been different. And that you and dad had been able to see all of the good parts of my world. And I think you might’ve been able to if the ending hadn’t been such a shock.”

Helen found herself dabbing tears from her eyes, looking at her daughter. “I think,” she said in an equally careful voice. “That I’d like to learn more about your world. But only so long as you can be honest with me about it.”

A smile spread across Hermione’s face. “I’d like that very much.”

The bitterness was not gone from her heart, but Helen had long known that if they were unable to move past what had happened that there would be no hope for a genuine relationship.

“You’re right about us being famous,” Hermione said as the silence stretched on. “I forget most of the time and then I’ll get a chocolate frog and there I am staring up at myself.”

“Chocolate frog?” Helen repeated.

Hermione smiled, “It’s these chocolates that have cards in them of famous witches and wizards. Children collect them.”

“Ah,” Helen repeated, not entirely understanding.

“I’m sure Ron has some stashed somewhere,” Hermione said getting to her feet and going to the cupboard. “He’s the one who got the kids on collecting them. I think he’s secretly trying to finish his collection.”

She searched for a moment behind the baking things and then, as if it just occurred to her, pulled her wand and said, “A _ccio Chocolate Frogs_.”

To Helen’s amazement, the hall closet flew open, knocking a coat off its hanger and out soared an open box. It came straight to Hermione who caught it, frowning at the coat as it righted its self with another flick of Hermione’s wand.

“Here,” Hermione said, grabbing out a smaller package and handing it to her mother. “Careful, it’ll jump out at you.”

Carefully Helen ripped off the top and to her continued astonishment, a small frog shaped chocolate leaped into her lap. She shrieked, jumping to her feet as Hermione snatched it off the floor with a grin. From the upstairs came the thundering of feet and moments later Ron had appeared in the kitchen, half put together and with his wand drawn.

“It’s alright,” Hermione assured him, still grinning madly. “The frog jumped out at her.”

“Ah,” Ron said, bending down to kiss Hermione. He too did a funny movement with his wand before putting it away. “Chocolates before breakfast? The kids’ll be thrilled.”

“I was just showing my mum the cards,” Hermione explained, turning back to her mother. “Go on, the card’s inside.”

From the corner of her eye, Helen watched as Ron snatched the frog out of Hermione’s hand. Hermione swatted at him but made no effort to get the chocolate back. The wrapper produced a sturdy card, on the front a picture of a witch in a rather tall hat and a charming smile on her face. "Celestina Warbeck.” She said idly, flipping over the card to read the back.

“The kids and I have managed a pretty fair collection, but I’m pretty sure I saw James and Al nicking it last time they were here,” Ron said, sitting down next to Hermione as he munched on the frog. “I’ll see if I can get it back, there’s several of us in there.”

He reached for the box, “Or we really can feed them to the kids for breakfast, I’m sure we’ll find one of us in here.”

“We won’t either,” Hermione said, snatching the box from his hands.

Ron grinned at her, “George scheduled a meeting with some kids who want to pitch us a project so I won’t be here to get the kid’s to Ginny’s.” 

“They should be fine,” Hermione said hesitantly, looking sideways at her mother.

“I can watch them,” Helen offered, watching them interact with an amused look on her face.

Ron was nodding in approval even as Hermione protested. “Don’t feel like you have to mum.”

“That’s why I came here, isn’t it?” she asked, “To spend time with my grandkids?”

Hermione and Ron shared a look and then Hermione nodded, “Alright, we just don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything for us though.”

“Part of being family, Hermione,” Ron reminded her, standing up and stealing another frog from the box before she could stop him. “You want to start breakfast or the kids?”

“Breakfast,” Hermione said without a thought, standing up herself. “Just let me finish getting dressed.”

“You go on,” Helen waved her. “Get ready, I’ll make something for them.”

Helen could see Hermione was about to protest but Ron squeezed her shoulder and she settled on a smile. “Thanks, mum.”

“You know,” Helen could hear Ron saying as they walked from the room and back up the stairs. “I really think having your mum here is going to be a good thing Hermione.”

“You’re only saying that because she’s making breakfast,” Hermione teased.

“Mmh,” Ron’s faint voice answered. “Or I’m just saying that because there aren’t enough people raising our kids.”


End file.
